We're now working on Combo Critters - definitely our most challenging project until now. Early December, one of our team members came up with the following prototype:

It's about making right combinations to get new creatures and surviving waves of enemies. We had a lot of fun playing this prototype, especially the part about combining monsters, so we decided to make it a full project after the release of Sky Chasers.

Unfortunately, during development we noticed that people were not enjoying the first versions of Combo Critters as much as we hoped for. Looking backwards we believe we made the following mistakes:

Version 1: too unpredictable

We started with a grid screen where you were able to combine monsters.

Once ready, it's time to go to battle:

Why did this version not work:

The grid screen led to confusion among players and observers. Observers thought this was a match-3 or puzzle game. Players didn't know why they needed to combine, when to stop combining, and what they were preparing for.

On the battlefield players were tapping on the monsters expecting something to happen.